On the topic of hard to get shellfish, is there anywhere locally that serves mantis shrimp? "Pissing shrimp" as it's known in Cantonese

never understood why do people love them

the meat sucks, taste awful

shell is sharp that cuts your hands



would prefer to eat tiger prawn or spot prawns

yeah i'm with you on that one. super hard to eat and expensive. the meat does have a lobster-like texture but i think it's overrated.

Mantis shrimp was so fucking stupid. That shit cost an arm and a leg and most of it was the weight of the God damn shell itself.

cause asians love piss.

duh.

None locally. Unfortunately you'll have to go to Asia for that.

:rukidding:

So is a crab, you don't see people making too huge of a fuss about that.

Sounds like something a hipster would eat.

Do I need to go to Asia for crab? No.

Just went to Mott32 at their soft opening. In terms of taste, it's fantastic 10/10. In terms of price, more like a 4/10. The portions are tiny, literally a dinner plate of food. For the pork belly, it's $20 for 12 tiny pieces because it's Spanish Iberico pork. You're looking at $20 a dish for appetizers, and $30-60 for a main dish. The main dish you have to get is also one of the most expensive if you go to this restaurant, their famous peking duck. $95 and it's only one dish with the skin, but it taste great, skin is crispy and the meat is juicy and tender. Very different taste than the other cantonese restaurants.

Had a chat with the executive chef and he amazes me. Apparently he told me the duck they sourced from Canada is very bad. They had to get rid of at least 5-6 out of 10 because it was not up to par to their standards, the meat and especially the skin. This was a reason why they kept delaying the official opening because they don't have the perfect duck. Also a reason why you have to reserve a duck so they have enough as they will never use a bad duck. He's trying to get the ones from China which is what the HK's Mott 32 uses. They also pulled half the staff from Mott 32 to train the staff here. He also mentioned they been trying very hard to get a Michelin star for the HK restaurant.

Thank you for this as I plan to go in the near future. I didn't know there was a soft opening. Few questions for you:

Are reservations required?

How much of the menu is available right now?

Is it invite only?

When I hear of Mott32, I always think of this review:
A Fuck Yeah Noms review - Mott 32

As soon as I heard "the chef says Canadian ducks are no good so they have to get imported from China" I knew it would be a wank fest. Let me tell you a little bit about fraser valley ducks, that I have butchered on many occasion. They are good, and even if Chinese duck is in fact better, you think it's still going to be better after flying across the Pacific Ocean? Fresh awesome food is better than old more awesome food.

Reservations not needed now cause no one knows about it but still good to have one. Many people just dropped in. Full menu is available but peking duck needs to be preordered.

I left out a piece of info but I overheard them saying the machinery that takes the feathers off messes up the skin and ruins it. That might be why but I have no clue as this is not my area of expertise. I only eat it.

What other dishes have you tried? Price for those dishes?

Earliest I can make reservations with for Peking Duck is next week. Fully booked for the weekend and no ducks left for tonight. FeelsBadMan

$95 for a peking duck what. It better really be that good.

I just ate there after bomberR17's review. So thank you for that.

drinks are min. 13-21 dollars, their signature drink was legit. What was NOT legit was their HK milk tea (alcoholic), luckily their staff told us it was still "under review" which meant, don't order it yet, so I'm happy I didn't order it.

1) Staff
Reception, girl who got us menu, to the girl who took our order were 3 different people, SUPER friendly and amazing service. Manager came by and asked us how we were, very well educated. What is Mott 32, what's the famous dish (duck), which drinks were good etc. Out of everyone there, only 5 were Cauasian, everyone else were Asian. Maybe I'm racist, (I'm asian), but a few of the manager's had a a bit of a strong accent.

2) As per bomberR17, the BBQ pork is NOT 25 bucks. Wait, let me rephrase, the BBQ Iberico spanish pork was $46; and there were 15 pieces. It was good and tender, but not the same texture from our pork.

Not even going to comment on price. I'm asian so I aint' going to judge; similar to people saying $36 dollars pasta is OMGWTFBBQ good, but it's $36 dollars)

3) Food

Their famous duck dish (aka honger peking duck) was $95. 16 pieces of crispy skin; they only have 4 today (i had no reservations) but they made it available for us. They do also charge $20+ for the secondary meat dish (which I didn't have).

I ordered a salad which came with the duck meat from the peking duck above, and that was $18. It had truffle oil and it was just totally overpowering. They could have taken out truffle oil and add a few more things to give it a better salad.

3) Dessert: the dessert was great, I had the soya sauce ice cream, so it was intersting. To be honest, it tasted like salted caramel. None the less, it was much better than Glowbal (their desserts are from Furborq).

It's their soft opening, staff were friendly, and they accomadated us well and had duck even when they said they have a 24 hr reservation.

PS, they have suckling pig, 2 day wait list, $345.
PPS, their pool side night club on the 2nd flloor will be opened to public on the 28th. Will report back when my friend stays at the hotel next week.
PPPS. The Trump tower champagne room is a good place go to; NO, don't mistaken it as Brandy's champagne room ahhaahha

Almost a hundred for a peking duck, and you JUST get the skin? What the hell do they do with the rest of this "premium china" duck??
Most Chinese restaurants, even higher end ones will serve you all 3 courses, like the skin wrap, the stir-fried veggie wrap and bone soup for around half the price.
I have never heard ducks from anywhere in China being better than ducks in Canada.

They are still using Canadian ducks, but they want to source other ducks.

I might have mixed up the two pork dishes i got. They have the BBQ pork (cha siu) which is $46, and they also have pork belly, the crispy skin pork one (siu yok?) which is $20ish? Couldn't remember exactly the price as I wasn't the one paying lol. The taste was great on most of the dishes, but I do think it's a bit over hyped.

I'll try to remember. I know we ordered marinated jelly fish, but it's more like in flat pieces rather than the traditional long string like. That was around $20 for a small bowl lol. Some wok fried kale which tasted very strong and spicy, like how canto people like to say lots of "wok hay", sautéed asparagus, and just for laughs, wok fried beef noodles with the beef being black angus. These dishes were around $20-30.

Yup. You can't compare to honger place (even kirin; 3 courses (wrap + lettuce wrap + soup (from bones) is MAYBE 60-70 dollars).

Look at Bao Bei, Sai Woo, all these "upscale" honger place in Vancouver now. It's not even close because as Asians, we asians will be like WTF, you're charging me 3 day braised "SIU YUK" and even the BEST part of the skin is SOFT wtff.. I can get it at HK BBQ Master for cheap ahahaha.

FYI
Marinated jelly fish heads; smaller and round. The ones at our typical chinese places are the body. Long and yellow.

It's an extensive menu as in; seafood, appetizer, specials, meat, dessert, drinks, vegetables all had a separate page even if it's a smaller page.

Went to Bishops on west 4th for their $40 dine out menu, I am always skeptical about dine out as I'd say 75% of the time I've been disappointed and do not think it's an accurate representation of the actual restaurant, but friends of ours had made reso's so I went

Started with the Foie Terrine, served with toast and a berry compote, fuck it was killlerrrrr, obviously it's kind of hard to go wrong with a foie terrine but texture, depth of flavor, etc was excellent.

For the main had their rack of lamb mustard crusted with some sort of Jus and a kind of relish/veggie mix thing, I've aten at some pretty decent restaurants and had lamb quite a few times, this lamb was the best I've ever had bar none. The flavor was so damn good I couldn't beleive it, not usually one to take pics but I had a feeling about this one! Lol

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y13...ps0tyrovqw.jpg

Ended with the poached pear with a Gorgonzola whip on top of a biscuit, tasty desert, unique in that you had the sweetness with the pear but it almost felt like a cheese course in how tart and savory the Gorgonzola was.

The foie and lamb were $10 additions, a cocktail each and bottle of wine between me and the misses came to $100 each with tip.

Very enjoyable experience, will go back to try their regular menu

You said the magic word.

http://d2vrsup6vl2y4n.cloudfront.net...ins-605300.jpg

I don't see the HK milk tea on their HK menu. Are you talking about the milk tram? Or are they two different drinks?

looking for a place with french toast and ice cream on top, and the same place has a bucket of tofu

anyone know where?

^bucket of tofu...ho yuen kee?..but i don't recall if they have french toast and ice cream on top